Welfare reform was enacted on a bipartisan recognition that work is healthier than a government check -- for poor adults, and for their children. In the 1996 signing ceremony, President Clinton didn't dwell on dollars spent; instead, he talked of humans "trapped" in decades of dependency. Then he quoted Robert F. Kennedy: "We need [work] as individuals. We need to sense it in our fellow citizens, and we need it as a society and as a people."

That we, as a nation, are losing that thread can be seen in a host of troubling numbers: The rise in households on government assistance and the decline in wages as a share of national income, to name just two. But recently, and most vividly, it showed up in little-noticed news surrounding two aid programs: federal disability insurance and welfare.

The first is buried in the pages of a new Congressional Budget Office study warning that Social Security Disability Insurance -- facing a six-fold explosion in recipients since its 1970 inception -- will go bankrupt unless taxes are raised or benefits cut.

A program meant to support people who can't work because of a chronic illness or disability now sends checks to 4.5% of working-age adults, up from an initial 1.3%, and is on its way to climbing past 5%.

“But just days before the CBO’s warning on disability insurance, President Obama — by administrative fiat, and with little fanfare — threw that out.

There was a shocking lack of media attention to this move by his Department of Health and Human Services to gut the heart of Clinton’s 1996 reforms. Leading Republicans mostly cried legal foul, since Obama bypassed Congress with an executive action.”

2
posted on 07/30/2012 10:10:04 AM PDT
by listenhillary
(Courts, law enforcement, roads and national defense should be the extent of government)

Several of my friends have no problem with living a second class lifestyle at the government teat. Driving a beater car, no girlfriend, living in a dump they point with pride at having “beaten the system” by qualifying for disability.

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